"Last June, U.S. District Judge George Wu sentenced Charlie Lynch, former operator of a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, California, to one year and one day in prison. Yesterday Wu finally released the memo (PDF) that explains the reasoning behind the sentence. It shows a judge bending over backward to mitigate what he plainly thought was an unjust punishment for a man who strove to comply with state laws allowing patients to use cannabis as a medicine."

Thankfully Mr. Lynch had a humane and decent judge. Still he must spend the next year in prison even though he was in compliance with California state law and was only engaged in his activities in order to help people. No good deed goes unpunished.